Picturing Sensitive Matters

Within the framework of an anthropology of techniques and material culture focused on the relationship between humans and non-humans in a context of ecological crisis, the objective of this article is to contribute to a discussion on the function of images – animated or static, realistic or imaginary – both as ethnographic tools and as modes of scientific writing and knowledge sharing. This article draws on ethnographic data from the multi-sited PhD research I conducted in Viêt Nam between 2011 and 2018 which focused on urban waste politics, social and environmental lives of plastic waste, and supply chains of globalised plastic recycling. In this authoritarian context, I argue that waste and plastics are sensitive matters that engage politics of representation: between the official ‘good image’ of Viêt Nam and the ethnographic pictures that make these waste matters visible, the researcher has to contend with an ‘elephant in the room’. Through a reflective analysis of different experiences and practices of photography, filmmaking, and drawing illustration, this paper will thus address political, ethical, and aesthetic issues related to the circulation and publishing of research images inside and outside of academia.